Elizabeth Eastland joins UNSW to drive innovation

UNSW Sydney is delighted to announce the appointment of Elizabeth Eastland to the position of Director Entrepreneurship.

Dr Elizabeth Eastland

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Elizabeth Eastland to the position of Director Entrepreneurship.

Over the last seven years, Dr Eastland has been a visionary in the Australian innovation landscape, founding and leading the University of Wollongong’s globally recognised innovation accelerator, iAccelerate, for which she and her team were awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Award in 2015. More recently she has been responsible for CSIRO’s innovation strategy and delivering Australia’s first national deep-tech accelerator.

“Elizabeth is an original, and deeply innovative thinker, with core strengths in strategy, leadership, new opportunity development and innovation.

“The recipient of several awards including one of the Top 100 business women in Australia, Business Class Magazine, and in 2012 named one of AFR/Westpac’s ‘100 most influential women, her appointment to UNSW signals an exciting future for the University.

“As Director Entrepreneurship at UNSW, Elizabeth will play a key leadership role, driving the entrepreneurship of the University and developing, fostering and maintaining collaborative and commercial relationships to expand innovation and start-up networks, attract sponsorship and achieve UNSW’s key innovation goals, including scaling up its successful student start-up program,” Professor Boyle said.

Dr Eastland received her PhD from Sydney University, and her Executive MBA at the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at UNSW, winning both the Alumni Scholarship & Alumni Prize.

“A great university must be a global leader in discovery, innovation, impact, education and thought leadership,” Dr Eastland said, “And with that understanding, I believe UNSW has the potential to lead Australia, not just in building the greatest number of startups, but in delivering some of the most impactful and profound innovations in the world.

“As an award-winning alumna of UNSW, I am proud to be joining the University in the capacity of Director of Entrepreneurship.”